LSAT India vs LSAT Global - Are they interchangeable?

LSAT India vs LSAT Global - Are they interchangeable? - Law School Admission Council (LSAC) conducts the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) internationally for admission to several law schools in the USA, Canada and other countries. However, in the case of India, LSAC has an India specific law admission test; LSAT-India. Both LSAT and LSAT-India focus on Reading comprehension, Analytical abilities and logical reasoning. Then, how are they different? Can we use the LSAT India 2020 score for admission to a law school where LSAT (international) is accepted?. Read the article to know more about LSAT India vs LSAT Global and other related information.

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LSAT and LSAT India - General overview

Particulars

LSAT-India

LSAT

Conducting body

Law School Admission Council

Frequency

Once in a year

Four times in a year

Type

India specific

Global

Level of difficulty

Moderate

Tough

Subjects/sections

Reading comprehension

Analytical abilities

Logical reasoning (1)

Logical reasoning (2)

How is LSAT-India different from LSAT (international)?

As the name suggests, the LSAT-India is particularly designed after considering the law education in India where the legal education starts at the undergraduate level, and students come directly from their schools, hence the LSAT in the Indian context cannot be like the one conducted at the international level. As Dr Jason Dickenson, Director, India Testing - Law School Admission Council says, LSAT at the international level, in its original form, is designed to test the candidates at postgraduate level. So, there is a big gap in terms of education and hence the LSAT India has to be somewhat easier than the original LSAT. Also, LSAT-India is conducted for admissions to both LLB and LLM programmes whereas LSAT is mostly conducted for postgraduate law programmes.

The LSAT (international) is conducted 4 times in a year, and the exam centres of the test are available in several countries. Whereas, LSAT-India has to be as per the academic year followed in India and hence it is conducted only once in a year.

For other particulars like the syllabus, test scheme, scoring, the LSAT and LSAT-India are somewhat similar except that the level of exam is moderate in India from what we see in the original form of LSAT.

LSAT vs LSAT-India - are they interchangeable?

Certainly not, with the LSAT-India, in its current form cannot be interchanged with the LSAT(international). No law college outside India accepts LSAT-India because they are already accepting the LSAT(international) or some other exam. Being an India specific exam, LSAT-India has its limitations as it can be used only in India.

LSAT or LSAT India - What exam should I choose?

The answer to this question depends on the requirements of the candidate. If a candidate wants to study abroad, LSAT-India will not be the option to choose. In such a case, he/she will have to appear in LSAT (International) because that is what is accepted by several law schools across the world.

However, if the candidate is eying for a seat in national law university, LSAT-India will not be the right option. Admissions to the national law universities are offered only on the basis of Common Law Admission Test which is conducted by the Consortium of National Law Universities.

How good is LSAT-India?

The acceptability of the law entrance exam is one parameter that we must look at before deciding whether it is a good option or not. LSAT-India was conducted for the first time in 2009-10 and today, more than 70 law colleges accept the LSAT-India score and these include some top private law colleges like Jindal Global Law School, School of Law, UPES, Dehradun, ICFAI Law School and others.

LSAT-India is very different from the other law entrance exams such as CLAT, AILET, SLAT that are conducted in India. Most law entrance exams focus on testing the candidates on subjects like Current affairs, legal aptitude, general knowledge, maths etc, whereas, LSAT-India focuses on reading and comprehension ability, analytical thinking and logical reasoning. So, there is a big difference between LSAT-India and other law entrance exams conducted in India. In terms of students taking the exam, there are exams like CLAT and MHCET law in which more than 50,000 candidates appear every year. LSAT-India has also steadily gone up, and today thousands of students are taking the LSAT-India exam.

Hello student cut off vary every year on various factors like the level of question in the entrance examination and total number of applicants in that examination, its difficult to predict exact score but as per previous year records 80 percentile or more than 80 percentile for 5 year law program at jindal law school.

No. A very important point to remember is that there is no negative marking. So, once you reach the end of the section if you haven't answered every question or attempted every question then absolutely go back and answer. You have roughly twenty percent chance of getting it right just by guessing so please save 30 seconds to a minute at the end to go back and make sure that you have an answer entered for every single question.

I think it's a misperception that it is an easy test and you don't have to prepare for iit and you can just walk in and take it unlike the CLAT and I think that's wrong. I don't think it is an easy test and I know it is not because I actually see the raw scores and it's certainly a test that you have to practice for so one thing I will tell you as far as percentiles and so forth is that even our highest scoring test takers over the years get a lot of questions wrong.

If you take the practice tests and you get 30 or 40 wrong out of 90- 92, they might want to give up but that's not necessarily the case. Again, you can get a good score with quite a number of questions answered incorrectly. So don't lose hope.

People believe that reading questions first is helpful and that will save time and that makes sense theoretically but my hunch is that for most people anyway that it is actually not going to work out very well because what is going to happen is that if you try to read the questions and then you read the passage and then you go back to the questions and you still wouldn't know the answer. You will have to go back to the passage. So you have to read the questions one time more than you need to. One thing to remember is that time is very precious in this test. It is a tough test and a good number of questions in the section and you don't have a lot of time so you have just a minute or two per question so you really should not waste your time. Time management is absolutely critical so reading questions first may work for some people and may work for some kinds of tests, our passages are not conducive to that practice because they are so dense and they have so many ideas in them and they are complex. The answers are not just going to pop off the screen at you once you read the passage. You really need to focus on the passage first and then go and tackle the questions.